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Peter Whibberley

Peter Whibberley

Senior scientist

Peter Whibberley is a Senior Research Scientist in the National Time Scale group. He is responsible for the maintenance and operation of the national time scale UTC(NPL), including the GNSS and two-way satellite time and frequency transfer (TWSTFT) links, and the time dissemination services. In recent years Peter has investigated methods for time transfer over optical fibre networks, including proof-of-concept trials that led to the development of the NPLTime® service for the financial sector and other users. Between 2017 and 2021, Peter was the Chair of the EURAMET Technical Committee for Time and Frequency (TC-TF), and he also represents NPL on ITU-R Working Party 7A, covering international coordination of broadcast standard-frequency and time signals.

Peter joined NPL after graduating from the University of Oxford, working initially on millimetre-wavelength spectroscopy for the JET nuclear fusion experiment and to characterise high-temperature superconductors. After moving into time and frequency metrology, Peter started the development at NPL of a caesium fountain primary frequency standard, initially in collaboration with the University of Oxford, and worked on the construction and evaluation of the prototype fountain for the following 10 years. Peter then took over responsibility for the operation and development of NPL's time scale and time transfer systems. Peter has given a number of radio and television interviews and briefings to journalists, many of which were about the future of the leap second in UTC.

Peter is a Member of the Institute of Physics (MInstP) and a Chartered Physicist (CPhys).

Areas of interest

  • Time scale operation and development, including steering strategies
  • Optical fibre time transfer methods
  • International coordination of time and frequency metrology

Key publications

Local representations of UTC in national laboratories,
P B Whibberley, J A Davis and S L Shemar
Metrologia, volume 48, number 4, July 2011
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/0026-1394/48/4/S05

Guidelines on the use of GPS disciplined oscillators for frequency or time traceability,
EURAMET Technical Guide no.3, March 2016.
https://www.euramet.org/publications-media-centre/technical-guides/

Use of software-defined radio receivers in two-way satellite time and frequency transfers for UTC computation
Jiang ZH; Zhang, V; Huang, YJ; Achkar,J; Piester, D; Lin, SY; Wu, WJ; Naumov, A; Yang, SH; Nawrocki, J; Sesia, I; Schulunegger. C; Yang, SQ; Fujieda, M; Czubla, A; Esteban, H; Rieck, C; Whibberley, P
METROLOGIA volume 55, issue 5, 685-698, Oct 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1681-7575/aacbe6

Direct comparisons of European primary and secondary frequency standards via satellite techniques,
F Riedel, A Al-Masoudi, E Benkler, S Dörscher, V Gerginov, C Grebing, S H¨afner, N Huntemann, B Lipphardt, C Lisdat, E Peik, D Piester, C Sanner, C Tamm, S Weyers, H Denker, L Timmen, C Voigt, D Calonico, G Cerretto, G A Costanzo, F Levi, I Sesia, J Achkar, J Gu´ena, M Abgrall, D Rovera, B Chupin, C Shi, S Bilicki, E Bookjans, J Lodewyck, R Le Targat, P Delva, S Bize, F N Baynes, C F A Baynham, W Bowden, P Gill, R M Godun, I R Hill, R Hobson, J M Jones, S A King, P B R Nisbet-Jones, A Rolland, S L Shemar, P B Whibberley and H S Margolis
Metrologia volume 57, issue 4, Aug 2020
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1681-7575/ab6745

Peter Whibberley